Villagers and other area residents turned out in droves Saturday to help a local restaurant manager who lost everything when her Wildwood mobile home was destroyed by a fire on Easter Sunday.
A steady stream of vehicles could be seen at all three of the Cody’s Original Roadhouse locations in The Villages throughout the afternoon as donations poured in for Mary Recchia, general manager of the Brownwood eatery. The single mother of six also is out of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The outpouring from The Villages is just amazing,” said Allen Musikantow, owner/operator of the Cody’s restaurants in Brownwood, Lake Sumter Landing and Mulberry Grove. “Mary has had donations from all over the country. It’s New York and everywhere.”
Recchia said she’s been overwhelmed with the support she’s received since the devastating fire, including a $1,000 check that was presented to her Saturday from the Orange Blossoms Gardens Lions Club.
“The support from people here at The Villages has been amazing,” she said, shortly after receiving the Lions Club’s donation. “You can’t even imagine how people have reached out, especially with everything going on in the world right now. These people are just so generous.”
Brian Mann, a bartender at the Brownwood Cody’s restaurant, has spearheaded the fundraisers and collection drives for Recchia, including a GoFundMe account that by late Saturday afternoon had reached $35,153 in donations from 465 people. He also labeled Saturday’s donation drive as amazing and said he can’t thank Villagers and other area residents enough for their immense support.
“I’ve never seen a fundraising drive and donation drive ever in my life that matches this,” said Mann, who is housing Recchia and her three youngest children at his residence. “My house is already full and her girlfriend’s house is already full of stuff that we’ve been going and picking up and people have dropped off. Now, we have three Cody’s locations full of items,” Mann said, while also promising that any extra items received would be donated to others in need.
Mann added that the slogan about The Villages being Florida’s Friendliest Hometown is certainly no joke.
“I’m from one of the tightest, greatest communities you’ve ever heard of and this puts it to shame,” he said of his hometown of Miami Springs. “Everyone has come out and just outpoured so much support. It’s truly amazing.”
Mann also was quick to offer praise for Travis Long and Richard Brown, owners of Quality Moving Services in Lady Lake. He said they donated two 10-foot-by-30-foot storage sheds and a 30-foot trailer that quickly was filling up Saturday with donated items.
“They dropped the trailer off this morning and they’re picking it up and delivering it to the storage unit free of charge,” he said. “They also shared the donation drop-off with 5,000 people on Facebook.
Long, of Fruitland Park, said like Recchia, he and has family had been through a difficult situation at the beginning of the year. He added that his family members came together and really helped them through the tough time, so he wanted to return the favor to someone else in need.
“I found out about her situation and I fell in love with the idea,” he said. “It started off just donating the storage unit and from there we just kept talking and talking.”
Long said he donated the trailer for Saturday’s drive after he found out that Mann was going to have to use a small boat trailer to haul away all of the donated items. He said he also would be giving Recchia a $500 check to help her and her family get back on their feet.
“I have four boys and one on the way,” he said. “Hearing of a single mother doing it all on her own, I just fell in love with the idea of helping her.”
Recchia’s mobile home was deemed a total loss. Neither she nor any of her six children were at home at the time of the blaze, as they were celebrating her son Jacob’s 13th birthday. The mobile home, which included an addition on the back of it, was fully involved in flames when firefighters from The Villages and Sumter County arrived shortly after 1:15 p.m. and the blaze has remained under investigation.
